Patronus Lessons
Nov. 24th, 2011 04:37 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockOn the one hand, the Patronus charm has the reputation of being so difficult that many adults can't master it; on the other, not only does super-speshul Harry do so at thirteen, but so do many of his friends two years later--including not only the incalculable Luna, but the never-top-of-the-class Ron, Seamus, and Ernest. Nor can we ascribe their success to Harry's wonderful teaching, for in DH Arthur Weasley and Dolores Umbridge both use the charm with no problem under stressful conditions. Producing, in both cases, fully corporeal patroni, not merely silver puffs.
In fact, we don't have a single canon instance of someone trying and ultimately failing to master the spell. Why, then, its formidable reputation? And why did Harry have such trouble learning it?
Someone pointed out in the "Marietta's True Crime" discussion below that Harry's teaching the DA to cast the Patronus Charm might have alarmed Marietta about the group's intentions, since the only use she knows for the charm is to repel Dementors--the Ministry's authorized Azkaban guards. (Yes, it can also be used against Lethifolds--but not only are those beasts quite rare, they are tropical. Maybe southeast Asian schools of wizardry would teach it as a matter of course to their older students, but northern European ones? No.)
So I posit that the Patronus Charm is not and has not been part of the Hogwarts general curriculum, and that in Britain the only ones who have generally been taught it are those expected to have a need to deal regularly with Dementors: selected law enforcement personnel. Think about this a moment. Aurors would surely be trained to use the spell (summoning Dementors to take custody of the Dark wizards they catch). So too would prison guards. And quite possibly no one else.
Now, people might apply to become an Auror out of romanticism or adventurousness, a desire to serve or a desire to gain power, and they have to be near the very top of their year (five NEWTS) to get INTO the program. But I imagine that prison guards enjoy about the status in the WW that they do in ours. In which case most of the people applying would be on about the magical level of Stan Shunpike: magical drop outs with at most an OWL or two. If they were qualified for a better job, they'd be off doing it.
And Stan, and those on his level of intelligence and competence, WOULD find the Patronus charm (among many others) nearly impossible to learn.
Then it would follow that so as far as the wizarding public would know, the Patronus charm is easily mastered by those wizards and witches at an Auror-trainee's elite level--and everyone below that level is expected to struggle with it.
Now, of course, the OotP, unlike the general population, uses the Patronus Charm to communicate. If the supposition is correct that the general population has never been taught that charm, then Dumbledore may have divined the secondary use way back when he founded the Order and taught his followers it for that reason. Or, he may have taught his followers the Patronus Charm originally because he always expected that Tom, if once he thought of it, would eventually seduce the Dementors, and so Tom's opponents would eventually need to know how to repulse Dementors on Tom's side. Indeed, Albus could even have come up with the secondary use as communicators as an excuse to teach the charm without revealing his suspicions about Tom's ultimate appeal to the Dementors.
However, Fudge knows even less than we Dumbledore's true motives for teaching the Patronus. To him, the fact that Dumbledore's werewolf protege Lupin had known the charm well enough to teach Harry would have ultimately added to Fudge's suspicions about Dumbledore's followers. What did you say, again, Dumbledore, were your reasons for teaching a werewolf, one of Sirius Black's best friends, to cast a Dementor-repelling charm? Did you, perhaps, teach Black himself the same spell, back in the day?
Finally, let's pause for a moment to reflect on Harry's "best evah" DADA teacher's pedagogical incompetence in the Patronus lessons. Lupin explains the spell briefly to Harry, tells him the incantation (doesn't demonstrate any particular wand movement--are we to understand that with the Dark Arts--oops, I mean, Defense--an incantation and intention substitute for the precise pronunciation and exact wand motion required by such subjects as Charms and Transfigurations?), lets Harry try it once and achieve a puff of vapor--all good so far. Then Lupin looses the Boggart for Harry's second and all subsequent tries.
Excuse me, if I undertook to learn marksmanship, I wouldn't expect to be given ONE shot at a target before I was told to try under battle conditions!
Now, in the Boggart lesson this perhaps couldn't be helped--I don't know of any way to tell whether or not a student is casting Riddikulus properly without seeing its effect on an actual Boggart. But the Patronus charm has a visible effect, and normal pedagogical practice would be to let the child practice under controlled conditions until s/he had mastered the spell itself fully--THEN practice trying to cast it as protection against a Boggart-Dementor.
And we see that in the DA, many of Harry's students were producing a corporeal patronus by the end of what was apparently their first lesson--while poor Harry, trying to cast the spell while sinking into unconsciousness, couldn't master the spell for months.
In fact, we don't have a single canon instance of someone trying and ultimately failing to master the spell. Why, then, its formidable reputation? And why did Harry have such trouble learning it?
Someone pointed out in the "Marietta's True Crime" discussion below that Harry's teaching the DA to cast the Patronus Charm might have alarmed Marietta about the group's intentions, since the only use she knows for the charm is to repel Dementors--the Ministry's authorized Azkaban guards. (Yes, it can also be used against Lethifolds--but not only are those beasts quite rare, they are tropical. Maybe southeast Asian schools of wizardry would teach it as a matter of course to their older students, but northern European ones? No.)
So I posit that the Patronus Charm is not and has not been part of the Hogwarts general curriculum, and that in Britain the only ones who have generally been taught it are those expected to have a need to deal regularly with Dementors: selected law enforcement personnel. Think about this a moment. Aurors would surely be trained to use the spell (summoning Dementors to take custody of the Dark wizards they catch). So too would prison guards. And quite possibly no one else.
Now, people might apply to become an Auror out of romanticism or adventurousness, a desire to serve or a desire to gain power, and they have to be near the very top of their year (five NEWTS) to get INTO the program. But I imagine that prison guards enjoy about the status in the WW that they do in ours. In which case most of the people applying would be on about the magical level of Stan Shunpike: magical drop outs with at most an OWL or two. If they were qualified for a better job, they'd be off doing it.
And Stan, and those on his level of intelligence and competence, WOULD find the Patronus charm (among many others) nearly impossible to learn.
Then it would follow that so as far as the wizarding public would know, the Patronus charm is easily mastered by those wizards and witches at an Auror-trainee's elite level--and everyone below that level is expected to struggle with it.
Now, of course, the OotP, unlike the general population, uses the Patronus Charm to communicate. If the supposition is correct that the general population has never been taught that charm, then Dumbledore may have divined the secondary use way back when he founded the Order and taught his followers it for that reason. Or, he may have taught his followers the Patronus Charm originally because he always expected that Tom, if once he thought of it, would eventually seduce the Dementors, and so Tom's opponents would eventually need to know how to repulse Dementors on Tom's side. Indeed, Albus could even have come up with the secondary use as communicators as an excuse to teach the charm without revealing his suspicions about Tom's ultimate appeal to the Dementors.
However, Fudge knows even less than we Dumbledore's true motives for teaching the Patronus. To him, the fact that Dumbledore's werewolf protege Lupin had known the charm well enough to teach Harry would have ultimately added to Fudge's suspicions about Dumbledore's followers. What did you say, again, Dumbledore, were your reasons for teaching a werewolf, one of Sirius Black's best friends, to cast a Dementor-repelling charm? Did you, perhaps, teach Black himself the same spell, back in the day?
Finally, let's pause for a moment to reflect on Harry's "best evah" DADA teacher's pedagogical incompetence in the Patronus lessons. Lupin explains the spell briefly to Harry, tells him the incantation (doesn't demonstrate any particular wand movement--are we to understand that with the Dark Arts--oops, I mean, Defense--an incantation and intention substitute for the precise pronunciation and exact wand motion required by such subjects as Charms and Transfigurations?), lets Harry try it once and achieve a puff of vapor--all good so far. Then Lupin looses the Boggart for Harry's second and all subsequent tries.
Excuse me, if I undertook to learn marksmanship, I wouldn't expect to be given ONE shot at a target before I was told to try under battle conditions!
Now, in the Boggart lesson this perhaps couldn't be helped--I don't know of any way to tell whether or not a student is casting Riddikulus properly without seeing its effect on an actual Boggart. But the Patronus charm has a visible effect, and normal pedagogical practice would be to let the child practice under controlled conditions until s/he had mastered the spell itself fully--THEN practice trying to cast it as protection against a Boggart-Dementor.
And we see that in the DA, many of Harry's students were producing a corporeal patronus by the end of what was apparently their first lesson--while poor Harry, trying to cast the spell while sinking into unconsciousness, couldn't master the spell for months.
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Alternative means to communicate
Date: 2011-11-26 01:35 am (UTC)However, if one of Dumbledore's little silver instruments replicates the Trace on Harry, or goes off whenever the Ministry trace-tracker does, he would know what happened without need of Arabella or any other spy to tell him.
So I don't think we can regard the incident as conclusive. And there's no other evidence for either Arabella or Hagrid having an emergency-contact-system.
(As to the rest of the Order--is it just me, or is an emergency-contact method that requires one to think Happy Thoughts while, perhaps, one's family is being attacked by Death Eaters a trifle flawed?)
Re: Alternative means to communicate
Date: 2011-11-26 05:44 am (UTC)Re: Alternative means to communicate
Date: 2011-11-26 04:58 pm (UTC)How am I going to tell Dumbledore what's happened, I can't Apparate -
Great job of being inclusive, Albus.
Re: Alternative means to communicate
Date: 2011-11-26 07:45 pm (UTC)Keeping Arabella incommunicado
Date: 2011-11-26 08:25 pm (UTC)Re: Keeping Arabella incommunicado
Date: 2011-11-26 09:23 pm (UTC)Re: Keeping Arabella incommunicado
Date: 2011-11-27 11:34 pm (UTC)Re: Keeping Arabella incommunicado
Date: 2011-11-28 12:21 am (UTC)Re: Keeping Arabella incommunicado
Date: 2011-11-28 01:44 am (UTC)Re: Keeping Arabella incommunicado
Date: 2011-11-28 02:21 am (UTC)Re: Keeping Arabella incommunicado
Date: 2011-11-28 05:17 am (UTC)If he just wants an occasional update on Harry's general condition and doesn't need emergency notifications, he doesn't need someone permanently stationed on Privet Drive - he could just Disillusion himself and pop by for a day occasionally, or set a magical recording device on the lamppost or something. (Unless he expected kidnapping attempts and thought the DEs would disable a recording device, and wanted Mrs. Figg to... um... report whether she heard any suspicious noises that woke her? That she saw flashes of light through the Dursleys' windows? If they kidnapped him from within the house or while he was at school or just wore hoods, she wouldn't be able to identify him.)
It doesn't seem like Mrs. Figg a good enough profiler to be reporting on Harry's psychology ("superficially rebellious but looking for ideal authority figure to follow" or whatever), not that she interacts with him very often anyway or sees him apart from when he's gardening anyway to even learn much about his psychology. The reports must be something like, "He's still wearing oversized hand-me-downs and the Dursleys still yell. Weather is foggy." So what is Mrs. Figg even there for? I bet JKR didn't think of Mrs. Figg being a Squib until she started writing OotP.
Re: Keeping Arabella incommunicado
Date: 2011-11-28 07:01 pm (UTC)She does seem to have a rather pointless task. Filch also has a rather pointless task. This might say something about Dumbledore's attitude towards squibs.
----I bet JKR didn't think of Mrs. Figg being a Squib until she started writing OotP.
Mrs. Figg is listed as part of the "old crowd" at the end of GoF, but I also suspect that Mrs. Figg being a squib in the Order wasn't originally part of the storyline.
Re: Alternative means to communicate
Date: 2011-11-26 08:48 pm (UTC)